


There's A Place (For Drabble)

by thisbirdhadflown



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Drabble Collection, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbirdhadflown/pseuds/thisbirdhadflown
Summary: An ever-growing collection of Lennon/McCartney canon compliant drabble to save clogging up the feed with multiple small works.
Relationships: Alma Cogan/John Lennon, Brian Epstein/John Lennon, John Lennon/Paul McCartney, John Lennon/Royston Ellis, John Lennon/Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney/Paul McCartney
Comments: 46
Kudos: 83





	1. When I Hear The Church Bells Chime (April, 1969)

**Author's Note:**

> Set on the day of the last photoshoot. Paul and John barely discuss their status as newly-weds and the emotional carnage they wallow in.

**WHEN I HEAR THE CHURCH BELLS CHIME**

_"Wedding Bells' is what it was. 'Wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine'. We used to sing that song... It was like an army song and for us The Beatles became the army. We always knew that one day 'Wedding Bells' would come true, and that was when it did."_  
 **Paul McCartney** (Int: Chris Salewicz)

“So, I finally made it to Spain after all.”

He says it with a tight smile, barely visible underneath the fuzziness of his beard cloaking his mouth when he speaks. But Paul hears the strain of the sound, the tiny wavers reaching his ears and falling flat against the pit of his stomach. 

“Yeah,” Paul chuckles like it would cause him physical harm to grant John a genuine sign of amusement. Maybe it does. He leaps into humour like a life raft, speaking in a mock-American-journalist accent, “Feel different, Mr Lennon?”

John’s eyes burn into him, scorching and unforgiving and unbearably soft, “No, actually, I don’t.”

Here they are, standing like warped reflections of each other, afraid of what exists in the silences. What John isn’t saying still stutters through in memories Paul can't bear to dwell on. Memories of what came before Spain. Running through the winding streets of Paris, cigarettes still smouldering in gutters, Jurgen holding a camera up to capture them in their leathers and with newly cropped hair, glittering nights spent stumbling their way back home to a single bed with a ratty old blanket to keep them warm as they slept off the whiskey still burning in their chests. 

_We never needed Spain,_ Paul slips his hands into his pockets, looking up to the sky as if he’ll find relief there. 

They’re all standing on the road next to John’s Rolls-Royce waiting for the photographers to set up their equipment, the daylight breaking into their eyes with a cruelty he can’t quite squint to cancel out. Ringo is lighting a cigarette as he leans against the hood of the car and George is loitering by the outskirts of the scene and busying himself by chatting with one of the photographers. 

He wonders when he stopped being able to look John in the eye. It wasn't even after India because he remembers he could be brave about it sometimes. He managed it in New York when the stress of everything got too much and he had to take something to relieve the pressure. He’s never really resorted to drugs to cope with life before, not like that. It was always to enhance. Enhance creativity. Enhance the world. _Enhance relationships_ , John’s voice filters through. And John had looked him in the eye and Paul couldn’t break away, the anxiety scratching at the inside of his skull ceasing for just a moment of clarity before he was conscious of himself and turned away. And then time passed, Yoko watched them try to write songs and Paul's confidence splintered. And now John’s eyes are guarded. Cloudy, red, obscured by reflective glass. He reserves those looks for Yoko now. They sit cross-legged on the outskirts of the recording session and stare into each other’s eyes, fierce and loving. It means something to them. It possibly means the world to them, given how desperate they sound when they call for each other in the studio. Paul turns and slinks over to Ringo, kicking up the gravel underneath his shoes. It used to mean the world to him, too. 

At some point Ringo reaches out to him, tugging at tassels that dangle from his western shirt playfully. Paul looks to him and finds no humour. _Melancholic-shaped eyes_ , a journalist had once described them. But they were so brilliantly bright blue Paul had always thought of them as compassionately-shaped. This morning, right now, they're grey.

“You’re alright, Paul,” he says quietly. A reassurance. A comfort. Maybe even an apology. Paul’s posture sags a little, gentle breeze rustling through the trees and sending loose leaves skittering along the ground.

He puts his arm around Paul’s shoulder and presses a gentle kiss to the back of his head. Paul is too tired to cry. He's been worn down to the bare bones of his soul but he hides it well. Usually. He would never ask Ringo to remain the ever-forgiving and loving friend that will sit in his camp regardless of how exhausting he can be. Maybe he'll resent him as soon as their next recording session. Maybe he'll retreat back to George and John and glare at him from the corner of the room as he barricades himself with a piano and determined eyes fixed only on how his hands are splayed over the keys. The rhythmic _bang bang bang_ of calloused fingertips against ivories just to expel the dread of his life disintegrating by filling the air with noise and melody and words with or without meaning. _Tired_ , is the word, he thinks. Too tired to give Linda the truth as it is, rather than in fragments between gulps from a bottle of something to keep his throat burning. Whatever isn’t lost in the fire filters through and he tells her with his eyes shut tight as they lay in bed and hold each other. She loves him, he knows it so deeply and yet it still amazes him. But will he lose that, too? Is it really all so fragile? Love being extinguished so something new can rise from its ashes, but Paul worries he doesn't have the strength. 

John had gone to Paris to get married first. Is it so twisted and vile that he's slightly glad they couldn't get the certificate there? That John can have Spain for all his other fascinations and adventures but _they_ _have Paris_. There's a small triumph, a slight upper hand knowing that JohnandYoko raced around Europe desperately to get their names intertwined days after Paul and Linda stood in front of a church in the downpour of flower petals and confetti and smiled for the cameras. But that's _John's_ mind he's adopting. _Paul_ doesn't think like that. He _doesn't_. It's not all wins and losses. They're equal...

They are separate.

As separate as France and Spain. 

_We can never go back to Paris._ _All the clocks have run down and there's nothing I can say to save us from ourselves._

He closes his eyes against the wind, against the invasive click of the camera, against the world they have all built together crumbling to dust. Living is easy with eyes closed unless you know exactly what you’re missing.

_Now and then we meet again  
But they don't seem the same  
Gee, I get a lonesome feeling  
When I hear the church bells chime  
Those wedding bells are breaking up that old gang of mine _

__


	2. I Know The Way (August, 1963)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John spends the night with Royston Ellis and his girlfriend. Based on a real event.

Another gig finished, another bar to recover in and douse the adrenaline with drink. It’s a small place, barely enough room to dance on the sticky floorboards. John and Paul having to squeeze past a mass of loiterers just to get to the damn bar, and even then it’s a matter of Paul having to lean over the bar to try and snatch the bartender’s attention before anyone else gets it. 

It’s the thorn of a rosey evening that’s making John nervous tonight - the dinner plans that he hadn’t worked up the courage to tell Paul about just yet. When he thinks it over, hell, telling Paul about the Epstein holiday had been like running over hot coals, this hardly compared. But perhaps it’s the quantity rather than quality in this case.  _ Fool me once… twice…  _ He has to force it out eventually, press it from the depths of his gut and let it spill out past his gritted teeth and feign confidence, like always.

“Can’t stay for too long,” he says, volume just enough to reach Paul’s ears over the noise, over the humidity pressing in from every angle and creating a dewy film over his skin, “Seeing Royston before we leave. He’s got a girl he wants me to meet.”

It sounds utterly stupid, a blushy attempt at covering his tracks. Paul seems more focused on canting his head as if the bartender might catch the movement in his peripheral vision and drop everything for him. 

“A girl for you?”

“No,” John clears his throat, an ungracious shove from a patron behind him pushing his stomach into the bar’s edge and making him huff, “His girlfriend.”

“Oh right,” his bandmate barely looks to him, perking up when the bartender finally leans over to get their order, a crumpled note breezily dropped into the man’s palm.

“Might bring along someone of my own, aye,” John supplies, perhaps to his detriment because he’s hardly had his head turned during their tour through the Channel. 

“Remember that poem he did about shagging sailors?” Paul punctuates with an amused chuckle, “Easy, easy, break me in easy.”

He reaches into his pocket, turning so the dip of his back is pressed to the bar and looking impossibly cool when he flicks at his lighter with his thumb, _click click click_. John looks down to the initials carved into the bar’s surface and lets the shadows cloak his expression, wariness creeping in and stiffening his posture. 

“Just barely,” John lies. Of course he’d remembered it. He remembered Paul’s reaction, too - a mixture of shock and something he couldn’t categorise if he tried. “But yeah, he’s working as a ferry engineer these days.”

“Oh?” Paul hums, taking a drag and looking to the other side of the bar with a thoughtful expression.

“Might be a few hours, I don’t know,” he shrugs, relieved when their scotch and cokes are presented to them with a gentle shove across the counter, “Might get a dinner out of it.”

“A flaming pie?” Paul suggests, hiding a smirk behind his fingers as he takes another long puff, taking his drink in his other hand.

“Hold the flames,” John replies, taking a dramatic swig and draining most of the glass in one go, “You right?”

“Yeah,” the light in his face seems to fade, still slanting up against the bar with his eyes scanning the small crowd with dull curiosity. Suddenly John is desperate to leave. 

-

Royston’s attic apartment reminds him so sharply of the Gambier flat he has to take a moment just to process the tidal wave of nostalgia of having his eyes adjust to the low light and piles of books scattered along the floor. Royston himself is looking rather dapper tonight, fitted trousers and a sweater with a matching tie. He still has that strange indefinable way he carries himself. Neither masculine nor feminine. Possibly too close to how John is at his most relaxed. He talks with his hands, shutting his eyes when he has to really concentrate on what he’s saying. He still has those eyebrows, thin and arched and unbearably sitting over hooded eyes with long lashes. Not quite as girlish as Paul, not quite as pretty. Still, it’s close. His girlfriend, Stephanie, is a quite attractive herself, with long flowing hair that looks soft to touch spilling over her shoulder. She’s dressed in all black, the eye-catching neckline of her blouse has him distracted but fortunately his old friend has the perfect question to snap him back into cold empty reality.

“Are you still in touch with Stuart?” Royston asks, casual and polite. A knife to the heart all over again but John mops up his reactions quicker these days.

“He died,” he says plainly, “Last year.”

“Oh,” Royston frowned, shoulders sagging, “That’s a terrible shame, I’m sorry.”

John shrugs, the usual discomfort of cold chains around his neck. Another loss to tally. Stuart had written great epic poetry about death, and yet none of his dramatic musings had turned out to apply to what was actually felt, in the end. Maybe at first, when John had gone out of his mind and nearly fell from the window of the Kaiser with a crucifix in hand as he screamed out lines from Stuart’s letters like gospel to the people on the street below. Klaus Voormann had taken him by the elbow, gently guiding him away from the cold night air and back to their sleeping quarters like a shepherd with a lamb. But death stretches forever, an unceasing vacuum over time that can’t sustain constant fury. Eventually he had to fizzle out into depression, back to the start, and go trudging on as if the weight of all the loved ones he had lost were pressing over him, running him into the ground.

“Not one to dwell?” the older man leads them all to the living area. John sinks into a red velvet arm-chair with a curved back and the two of them wait as Stephanie fetches them a bottle of wine from the kitchen.

“Can’t stand talking about it,” he admits, casual shrug of his shoulders and a hint of irritation in his tone to scare off further conversation, “Any of it.”

“Mm,” Royston nods, “It’s different when it’s too close.”

“I’m writing love songs these days, anyway,” John tugs at the small hairs of his sideburns, “Paul and I, that is. Radio friendly, perfectly placed rhymes, no need for death.”

“What about those erotically charged limericks of yours,” Royston points and grins, “They were quite good.”

John finds himself quite flattered, “Only small things manage to get past the censors. Stuff we’d only understand, anyway.”

“Makes it all the more fun to sing, especially to an audience such as yours.”

“And thus, my dear, we have rock and roll,” he drawls, affecting a camp lilt and crossing one leg over the other.

“I’ll have to keep the radio turned on and listen out for your record,” Royston runs his hand through his dark hair, “See if I catch onto your innuendo.”

“Hope it makes an impression,” John tilts his head, playing unaffected by flirtatious looks, “You certainly did on us.”

“I’m glad,” he says, keening into the praise like a pleased feline, sharp teeth revealed in a crooked grin that makes him look less powerful than he always had in John’s eyes.

“Specially that one about the sailors,” he uncrosses his legs, planting his feet more firmly on the floor, “Paul remembered just about every line. Break me in easy, or summat.”

“Is that so?” Royston’s eyes seemingly look right through John, like he’s recalling a memory and has to concentrate, “Suppose I had shocked you boys. A rude awakening, perhaps?”

_ One in four men are queer _ , he remembers the plain way he delivered the statistic as if he were informing them of the chance of rain tomorrow. Spooked and somewhat speechless, the band had piled back into another van and indulged in a vicious round of accusations directed at Stuart, who had sat meekly right against the door and didn’t speak for the rest of the night. 

“It was hard to forget,” John laughs weakly and drags his fingertips over the armrest. _Impossible, actually._ He redirects the conversation, “Like those articles we’d read at the flat, about doing the dirty deed in leather sheets.”

“I do remember that,” Royston laughs and strokes his beard, eyes wandering up to the ceiling, “ _ I long to have sex between black leather sheets, and ride shivering motorcycles between your thighs _ .”

That sends a jolt of arousal burning hot through his body, fingers curling into loose fists and dragging up his thighs. He swallows hard, eyes darting to Stephanie as she crosses the room with a bottle in hand and sits beside Royston with her legs thrown over his lap. 

“I like that,” she smiles, casting a look to John as she presses her mouth to the lip of the bottle.

“I must have been inspired by the band’s get up,” Royston says, a knowing smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, “Do you think those anonymous writers have it right? About shagging in leather?”

His memory launches back to that night playing behind Royston as he read out his lines, the daring grin and sharp eyes staring into him as he spoke - the line hadn’t even been sexual, he doesn’t think. He barely remembers what he had recited at all, just the  _ feeling  _ it gave him to have a man like Royston look at him like that. Skin going hot and breathing faltering, fingers pressing harder into the strings. And afterwards he had been sweating in his leathers and searching for a drink to cool down with and found the beat poet already presenting two tall pints with a smile. They watched each other take their first sips and then it was over. The group dynamic reemerged just in time to save John’s sanity and he could convince himself afterwards nothing had happened. It hadn’t. 

“Have any of those leather sheets laying around, then?” he jokes lightly, shifting his weight and slouching like a proper aloof teddy boy just like he used to at art school to get Cynthia’s attention. And Stuart’s. 

Royston laughs, “No, unfortunately, we could have had some fun with that. All I’ve got are some oilskins. Just as kinky, perhaps.”

“Are you into that sort of thing, John?” Stephanie asks, eyes imploring. She hands the bottle to Royston, who thanks her quietly and takes a sip for himself, eyes not leaving John. 

“Dunno,” he watches them watching him, excitement surging through his veins, “I’m curious, though. Want t’ see what it’s like. Make a  _ News of the World _ sort of story for meself.”

“I’ve always wondered what the fun in it was,” Royston muses, “Just having a different sort of material around you.”

“Some people do it in bags,” John supplies with a nervous chuckle, “Saw ads in the Reeperbahn about it. They get right inside.”

“Maybe it’s the heat of it,” Stephanie suggests, fingers running through her hair, “All the sweat and steam caught in one place.”

Instead of disgust at the thought, Royston reacts with amusement, “I suppose I could see it. Maybe we should try it tonight?”

She gives a playful shove to his thigh with her foot, giggling and flushed. She starts to ask John something about the band, something about music, and he decides to strike while the iron’s hot. Because he won’t be able to push past it, the arousal now working up a nervous bobbing of the knee. He can’t determine why the urgency is searing through every layer of self-preservation he’s built upon, but he has had a taste of what breaking through convention and allowing himself to enjoy a rapture of forbidden ecstasy can grant him, so he perks up and lets his voice fall an octave to ask, “Am I invited to the party?”

-

He feels half foolish, bag wrapped around his torso and tied at his hip. What remains of his brain activity is too obscured by the fuzz of alcohol to really decipher anything beyond the arousal he feels as he watches Stephanie roll off of Royston and beckon him into bed with a curl of her finger. They’d spent half an hour draining that bottle of wine and digging through the kitchen cupboards for supplies, all mad with laughter. He’d indulged in a shot of something else from the liquor cabinet, something horrible tasting and incredibly strong, soothed only by the pleasant sound of Stephanie reading filthy poetry from on top of the dining table as her boyfriend produced a full length dark grey oilskin from under the sink. Once he’d had enough time to feel his muscles turn to thick jelly and all his joints warm and fuzzy, he followed along to the bed and stripped his clothes, looking over and catching sight of Royston palming over his crotch.

Within minutes he’s kissing her neck, feeling the heat of his groin rub uncomfortably against the polythene bag as she grinds against him. He’s trying to feel the warmth of her skin through the layer of plastic, trying to concentrate on getting off and making this a proper experience of wild kinky sex but his head is buzzing and all his thoughts are whirling back to Royston as he watches them with blown pupils and hands making busy work of jerking himself off underneath his oilskins. Stephanie whines, sharp fingernails scraping lightly over his spine and her silk thighs sliding over his as she lowers herself to his hips and rubs her hand over where he’s half-mast. He lies back, almost tempted to pull another bag over his head and see if that stirs him along, an effort to make something about this work or feel dangerous. But he can’t seem to find the rhythm in this, even when Royston reaches over to caress Stephanie’s hair and watch her. She’s performing for him, not for John, which makes things tricky and uncomfortable. He can barely stand the sight and sound of himself at the best of times, Royston is a proper star and he can’t get into this without being self conscious. He’s too drunk, is another problem. She could be bouncing in his lap with her tits out in his face and it wouldn’t have been enough to stir him out of this syrupy daze. Even when Royston flops back and lays next to him he doesn’t have the energy to roll over and try out what he and Brian did a few months back. See if it’s any different. He can’t see why it would, why Brian would be the exception. On every level Royston is more alluring. A beat poet that unabashedly recites prose about erections through leather and buggery in alleyways on stage night after night and travels the world like his stardom doesn’t faze him, doesn’t it keep him desperate for more attention -  _ that’s alluring _ . Brian was fitter than he expected him to be, less clumsy when it came to it, but he’d have been on his knees for John anyway. That and they knew each other so well, too close for comfort. But Royston was an outsider, someone he hadn’t had time to nurture a strange and obsessive fascination for. Someone who barely had time to have reciprocated desire for him. This is infatuation acted upon impulsively rather than a decision made closer to sober than he’d ever admit in a hotel room in Barcelona. He feels exposed and unsure, fumbling when Stephanie climbs back up and returns to her boyfriend’s arms and kisses him deep and slow. John listens to them. The horrible squeaks of plastic and the wet sounds between their mouths and all the small whines and moans and the gentle knock of the bedhead drumming against the wall. His eyes close with a mechanical effort but he’s finding it hard to will himself to open them again. Something about the way they murmur each other’s names, sounds of pleasure in rhythm that buzzes under his skin. They laugh together and he feels so much of an outsider to it, it makes his heart twinge with a pang of envy for such intimate familiarity. 

The novelty has worn off, as it often does these days. Sometimes a one night stand will be had with a dreadful emptiness that follows where a blissful afterglow should be. And the last time he’d had a proper thrill was with Brian, and fucking hell, he’s not going to dwell on _that_ for too long. But still, he’d had great sex since the holiday. Even with Cyn, which has become more comfort than rabid lust rendering him into a shivering mess until he can finally get his hands under her clothes. It’s love-making with Cynthia, the very thought of putting it like that twisting his gut with embarrassment. _Soppy fool_. Is it guilt that ruins him? Perhaps. But it’s not _just_ guilt that hollows him out after giving it to one of the backstage girls that climb into his lap after gigs. It’s something else he can’t name. Maybe the fruity side of him is tired of putting on a show for these girls. Making out like he needs it from them specifically rather than just expecting a convenient release from someone that finds him decent underneath all the ugliness. He doesn’t mind a bit of chase, laying on charm that’s a distinct brand of his own and clearly different to Paul’s coy flattery and bitten smirks. He likes it best when he’s finally got a hold of someone who wants him, _feels them_ _wanting him_ , and can hold that moment for as long as he can stretch it before lust takes over completely and the world blurs away. 

He blinks awake much later, two figures next to him fast asleep. Memories trickle back with a honey slow drip and he could almost laugh at himself. If he moves he’ll make noise and he can’t be bothered to fetch his clothes and make his way back to the hotel. 

Daft as it is, he wishes Paul were here. They’d be laughing something terrible right now, muffled in the dark with these ridiculous bags over their mouth in an attempt to quieten themselves. He imagines Paul watching the scene, nose slightly scrunched equal parts mild repulsion and clear fascination the way he had looked back in Hamburg during those outrageous stage performances. Maybe he would have watched John over Stephanie’s shoulder like Royston had, pupils blown and air electric between their bodies. Naked figures folding into each other, another couple getting it on right beside the two of them and nothing left to do but watch each other. 

Paul is untouchable. Something beyond John’s queer fantasies. Something beyond his own understanding. He figures he’s half in love with him. He must be. How else could he name it?  _ A fruit by any other name _ , he thinks sourly. Even on this climb to the top of the world he often finds himself unafraid of losing The Beatles, losing everything else. But losing Paul is always just too cruel. If he had sulked back to old Jim and gotten a proper job John might as well have walked right to the docks and filled his pockets with stones. 

Christ, how can you miss someone you spend nearly every day with? His face is flushed, chest warm as he thinks about it.

Paul might get a laugh out of the story tomorrow. John Lennon sleeping in a torn plastic bag with another couple, too drowsy to go back to his own bed. And he wonders if Paul is awake right now. If he has someone with him keeping him warm.


	3. the rain washed away (1964-1966)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul reflects on the wild and windy night they cried.

They never talk about it, which he can’t decide whether he appreciates or not. A part of him, anxious and writhing, wants to say something even after they leave Florida. Every rainstorm from then on awakens an incessant awareness he can’t shake. But he can never articulate that sort of thing, it’s a feeling he can’t break apart and arrange into neat words. So he soldiered on with the hangover the next morning, falling into the normal rhythm of things with John with a touch of desperation propelling him along. He hadn’t been ready to talk about it, and by the time he felt like perhaps he could mention it, the moment had long passed. 

When summer storms roll along the London skyline, reaching his Cavendish home and pouring down over his roof and battering the windows, he thinks about that night with a strange sensation in his gut, locking his posture rigidly into place. He watches the rain splatter against the glass and the trees curve and shake with the howling wind and remembers fragments of that night like he’s filing through an album of photographs he’s picked up so many times before. He always lands firmly in the middle of it all at first. Right when they had reached the point of absurd drunkenness laced with emotional fragility, crawling along the floor of their room with their heads swimming in amber as the whole hut seemed to shake as the storm raged. They pulled each other into orbit, migrating towards one another with their backs propped up against the bed and staring down at the carpet swirling around their feet. And he remembers the two of them just talking and talking, like when they were lads staying up late at Mendips because they wanted to know each other, to make each other laugh and meet each other’s voices in harmony. But at some point the tide receded into wistful quiet, words tumbling from his mouth and warm tears streaming and John just as far gone as he was. The air soon became cluttered with testimonies, all gushing out like water from a pipe. 

_ “Don’t even want t’ think about what I’d do without you, I’d be nothing.” _

_ “I love you, I really do.” _

_ “You’re the only one that understands.” _

_ “I couldn’t have survived it all without you.” _

_ “I do need you, I do. You should know it.” _

_ “You saved me.You have no idea, but you did.” _

Twin hysteria, the two of them slumped against each other and crying, interchangeably baffled by the absurdity of the moment and wholeheartedly experiencing soulful gratitude and love. He felt as though his tongue was swollen with the declarations, and if he didn't say it over and over he would choke on these words.  _ I love you, I’m so glad I found you, I love you _ . What he couldn’t say through the fuzz of alcohol, what he still can never find the words to say even now, was  _ everything else _ . And there was so much. 

I loved you at the start, when you were the trouble-making teddy boy with the national health specs you always left at home and notebooks filled with cartoons and poetry. I loved you when you were mourning and heartbroken, passed out on the bus and mumbling incoherent things about your mother in your slumber. I loved you every time you showed up at my door, every time you called on the telephone and every time I had to seek you out myself. I loved you when the band took off and I will love you when the bubble bursts. You are a part of me, John, I can’t picture a life without you in it somehow. 

Memories fade but there are things you hold onto because they are simply the truth, inescapable and intrinsically a vital part of you. So when he listens to Pet Sounds for the first time, there’s a kaleidoscope of colour and emotion spinning like a whirlpool in his chest and the distant memories of that night are brought to the surface and click into place.

_ God only knows what I’d be without you. _

He tells John over and over, _listen to it! Really listen to it!_ Again and again. And he watches John stare out the window, thoughtful and tranquil, peering from over his glasses out at the garden. He watches the golden sunshine hit his profile, illuminating all the warmth that Paul always sees in John, and feels his heart stir. He has to have faith that John understands what it means - that when he turns back and smiles and nods and gives a gentle compliment and a firm promise that they can do better than Brian Wilson, that he’s communicating something else that only Paul can reach. That only they can understand. 

So maybe he doesn’t have to talk about it, maybe there’s a greater understanding simply because it happened. That maybe to analyse an emotional landmark would warp the structure of it somehow. Make it different. Maybe it’s ok that Paul thinks of that night as immaculate as it is. And besides, [as long as there are stars above them, they’ll never need to doubt it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWPo5SC3zik&ab_channel=TheBeachBoys-Topic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I did tear up writing this, and funnily enough, it went from a bright sunny day to grey clouds in the time it took to write it all out. As always, you are very welcome to follow me on tumblr at thisbirdhadflownx. Thank you for reading.


	4. a good friend of mine follows the stars (1979)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John drifts in the valley of indecision.

He sees her scanning through the horoscopes, finger tracing down over her star sign, then Sam’s, and then languidly trailing down to Libra as if by obligation rather than genuine concern and interest. And then he’ll swipe the paper from the table and inevitably his eyes will flicker over Gemini. This is how it goes every morning. 

-

The second time Paul brought Linda into the studio Yoko leaned over and murmured something about her being a Libra, just like him, which was a horrific dash of salt in the barely healing wound. There he was, wracking his brains wondering how on earth she managed to wrangle Paul McCartney out of his perpetual state of bachelorhood when she was merely a celestial mirror of John. Paul traded swinging London life for a divorcée with a camera round her neck and a child on her hip, and John was left in the dust of whatever could have happened in India. The heroin probably didn’t help either. He was strung out, sweating bullets in Yoko’s fur coat, unshaven and unshowered while Linda sat with perfect posture by the piano, flipping her golden hair over her shoulder and smiling warmly. 

“I need a pin to poke another hole in this belt,” he taps on the table surface, “Where did you put the sewing kit?”

She grimaces a little in concentration, scribbling down a note in her planner, “I don’t know, John, just use a knife or something.”

“I’ll make a mess of it,” he tilts his head, huffing when she doesn’t respond and migrates over to the kitchen. It’s precisely in these mundane moments he remembers that he’s supposed to be a writer, his most significant concern of the day should be running out of ink, how best to wrangle his latest hit of inspiration and other things of that nature. At present he’s calculating the distance from one belt notch to the other, the sharp tip of the knife scraping lightly across the material flattened on the kitchen counter. He hasn’t written anything in weeks, and before that it had been scraps of rubbish. He tells himself he wants to publish another book, that it’s in the cards and it’ll happen eventually. And then some mornings he stares at his reflection, the gaunt empty replica of the identity he once had, and there’s no need to tell himself anything. He sees nothing. He does nothing. The knife breaks through, a small tear adequate enough for use. Yoko drifts by, tells him she’ll be late and they’ll have to have dinner without her, make sure Sean eats everything on his plate. He remembers little Julian perched at the table, grumpily staring down the green beans left behind on his plate, Cyn imploring him with a sigh. He’d either growl at one of them, Cynthia for being a nag or Julian for being stubborn, or just rattle the newspaper and huff in a poignant way that would scare the two of them stiff and silent. Every memory he has of family life brings along a sting of regret, sharp and heavy. Sean needs him, he sees that because he’s actually here. Julian needed him too. Cyn might have thought she did, but there was always going to be some swotty teacher or pristine lawyer standing by the exit just waiting to swoop in. Doesn’t make him less of a bastard, though. 

Julian had called the other day, nervous and overly polite - and John just nervous. They talked about music and motorcycles, John wondering how a kid with Powell sensibilities could come across so effortlessly cool as he spoke about picking his date up last night on the back of his bike, zooming across town to see a movie. It had him thinking about how out of his depth he felt when he was that age, a miserable fruit with his shoulders hunched up to his ears, barking at anyone who came close. Julian is probably closer to what Paul was and although it’s not a new theory it certainly gives him a shock of something profoundly painful every damn time - jealousy and melancholy tied together with something vaguely paternal. He could just as easily see Paul swinging his leg over a motorbike after charming the mittens off the mother of his latest fling as he could see him pulling his guitar out to entertain party guests with that smile - somewhere between bashful and cocky, you could never really tell. He was always so cool. 

He wonders what Julian calls the new husband. _Dad_ , presumably, but it makes his chest a little tight to think about that for too long. He cuts up Sean’s vegetables like he used to for Julian when the mood struck him, everyone beaming at him as if he were a performing monkey. Happy families. It was fun, it almost didn’t feel real - like he had stepped into another skin. _But it should be natural, right? I shouldn’t feel this empty every damn day_ . Christ, if only he had known. He’s doomed to repeat himself, but this time it’ll be Yoko packing it all in, moving into the next upscale pristine apartment with nothing but a couple of albums to tie their names together anymore. Karma has a sense of humour. Perhaps he ought to change his middle name again. _James Paul_ , his mind rather unhelpfully supplies, and he retreats to his bed to spend the dying day in a haze of sleep and sour thoughts. 

Havadtoy swung by the apartment the other day with a handy box of chocolate truffles to share. They broke their diet to indulge, John slumped in his chair as Sam and Yoko discussed Egyptian fabric - the sort of stuff John could talk about for a minute before realising he never really cared. But Yoko does care, she’s enthralled by Egyptian mythology and all the tidbits of history Sam has stored in his brain. John had been tempted to throw it all in her face, a snarled accusation once The Pharaoh himself had left. But there’s something about seeing Yoko focused, seeing her humming to herself as she flips through her daily planner, smiling faintly as she reads Sam’s horoscope. Something he doesn't want to disturb. You don’t wake someone who is sleepwalking, someone had told him once. Probably Paul, who had a tendency to drift through dark hotel rooms in the middle of the night and give the others a scare. 

He imagines she would effortlessly recall his infidelities one by one, stoic and direct as he trembled with indignant rage. And he would cry out that they meant nothing to him (except for May, who mightn't want him anymore now that he's slipping over the hill, so it doesn’t matter anyway). He would tell her that he knows this is different, that Sam is younger and brighter and gives a shit about things. How could she love her husband when life has wrung him out, leaving him a depressed uninspired sloth? And she would reply with something clever and quick, challenging him to evolve. Or she could actually leave him, and that was too frightening to test. He would be thrown into the unknown, desperate and useless. Fuck, he’ll die out there without her. 

-

Music used to flow through him so easily. Poetry was just a matter of picking up a pencil. He’s spiralling again, falling down the rabbit hole. Tumbling down loss after loss, a jagged piece of himself torn out every time. Maybe that’s what Paul took when he left, the diamond exterior of his creativity. _Imagine_ was just the pit of the fruit, the black bitter heart, and he’s been rolling it back and forth in his hands ever since. _Let me roll it to you…_

Yoko will take his pride, he speculates with a gulp of whiskey to stir him along, pulling his guitar into his lap. It’ll be like a sharp cut of a green gem, polished and gleaming. Something to really put those white walls to use. He bluffed his way to the very end, and there he will be, the gutted remains of a fool who thought he could outrun himself. He strums whichever chords his fingers manage to find, recalling the Mediterranean sounds he heard on the radio in the cab the other week. He wonders if Paul is using it. He’s probably looking for something new after coming off of that jazz high he got in New Orleans (without him). _Back To The Egg_ got trashed by the critics, but the people still declared McCartney king and hoisted him up to a tolerable place in the charts. A tangled warm feeling swam through him as he laid in bed during a night alone and listened to Arrow Through Me. That throbbing bassline, Paul _‘oohing’_ with the slight rasp of age making John’s blood run hot. Mind running wild. _Come on, get up, get under way, bring your love._ It’s a challenge, not a promise. He needs more. Always needs more. His heart stirred as he thought about it, strumming faint chords and feeling his fingertips fill with the fuzz of dull excitement at the prospect of playing with Paul again. Singing those daft words he only likes half the time. But maybe… 

But then there was that other one. The one he can’t make it through without his throat going tight, voice wobbling. _When will we ever learn? Why must we be alone?_ He puts the guitar down after a few minutes of mindless strumming, a new kind of numbness emerging, flaring out from the center of his chest. He should call him, just pick up the damn phone and talk like they did back in L.A, strolling up the beach and reminiscing because it’s the only safe ground they have anymore. But he gets that same flurry of nerves he can’t speak through. _If it don’t look right, walk right through it. If it don’t feel right, don’t do it. Just call him on the phone…_

Yoko will leave him and he’ll spin out of orbit, right back to the egg, but it won’t make a damn bit of difference. No one wants him longer than they can stand it. He’ll go on blindly falling down rabbit holes until he hits the ground six feet under. For now, there’s no one to call. He sleeps, curled up in the foetal position, clinging to a sagging pillow as if it’s someone he really loves. 

_Well now you're looking for a world of truth_   
_Trying to find a better way_   
_The time has come to see yourself_   
_You always look the other way_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Paul's 'Venus and Mars/Rock Show' and lyrics from John's 'I Don't Wanna Face It' (Is about him? Or him? Or them? All three?) I hope this small chunk of depressing drabble makes up for the fact I haven't been very productive lately! Swing by thisbirdhadflownx on tumblr for a laugh xxx


	5. that beautiful tennessee waltz (1964)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Alma Cogan discuss (and avoid discussing) love, sex and marriage and all the blurry things between.

He hauls himself upright, shrugging on his dress shirt and stumbling over to where his jacket had fallen and wrangles a packet of cigarettes from it. He catches sight of Alma, propped up perfect and regal, lounging amongst the pillows and looking at the vase of flowers on the bedside table. Plastic - cheap as dirt. She’s not really considering them. His line of vision falls down her naked body, over the small pink bruises where he had kissed along her collarbones with animal intent - and he feels a little ill. She still isn’t looking at him when she interrupts his guilt-ridden and murky train of thought with a sweetly detached sounding request, “Bring me one too, darling.”

“One too, three,” John replies, shuffling forward and extending a cigarette her way. He retracts it just as she reaches out, tilting his head a little as his eyes implore her with mischief and ever so slight misdirected resentment, “So, is it better?”

“Is what better?’ she raises a brow. He’s simultaneously delighted and irritated that she is the inverted form of all his expectations of her. Mumsy and plastic turning out to be sensual and intelligent. Just his luck to always find the eroticism within the very people he shouldn’t. 

He plants the cigarette between his teeth, flickering his lighter on to ignite his wicked grin, “It.”

He gestures towards his hips, her eyes follow and she huffs a laugh and shakes her head, “Now I  _ really  _ need a cigarette.”

He gives it to her this time, lighting it with his stare unwavering, trying to get her to break, “Do you prefer it? Or do you like it better with a clean cut Jewish fellow?”

_ Me or Brian? _ Is what he’s really asking. Rubbing salt into the wound. Drawing lines in the sand. Claiming what is his. He watches the slight collapse of light in her eyes as she takes a long drag. He knows she knows exactly what he means. 

“I don’t know, dear,” she shrugs a careless bare shoulder, eyes diverting to the ceiling, “You tell me.”

A flash of anger rouses him, and with a growl stuck in his throat he yanks the burning cigarette out of her mouth and storms over to the window to throw it out onto the street below them. Thirty floors downwards. His vision tunnels on a particular square of pavement, gritting his teeth as Alma’s stare burns into his back. 

“He’s never going to marry you,” John declares as he does up the buttons of his shirt, “And if he does then I’ll be sorry for both of you.”

“I don’t want to marry him,” Alma responds, voice a little too vacant for her not to be masking emotion, “Have I struck a nerve, John?”

God, he resents the borderline teasing in her tone. He glares at her, “No.”

“So,” she swings her legs over the edge of the bed, idly stretching her arms in front of her like Paul does after having sat still for too long, “What’s mine is yours? Hm, John?”

John swallows hard, feeling stupid and angry and exposed. He strikes again, harsher this time, “He won’t even manage you, you’re so past it.”

This time Alma does sink a little, face softening, eyes greying. John can’t stand it, so he looks out the window again and sucks on his cigarette as she pulls on her dress again. He listens to the lonely sound of her zipping up her own dress, the soft padding of her footsteps as she migrates to the ensuite. 

Regret stings in his chest, and he knows he can’t just let her go out with his bitter words plaguing her. The thing is, he does like her. A lot. All the other girls come and go so quickly, barely arousing anything in him, but Alma was so different. Exciting, brash, smart and sexy. Paul couldn’t tease him for going to bed with the matronly target of all his juvenile jokes because even he had been charmed by her. It would even be  _ impressive  _ to Paul that he was occupied in a hotel room with her - that’s just how brilliant she is. She’s vibrant even in her quietest moments. If he lost her as a lover, so be it, but he likes having her there, flirting up a storm by the piano as Paul plays an old ‘sonata’. He likes teasing her, her teasing him. If she wasn’t so unshakably feminine, she’d be a man. She’d be a  _ mate _ . He drops the cigarette and starts to get dressed. 

The ensuite door isn’t closed, and when he slips through the doorway he finds himself a little stunned all over again by how beautiful she looks. She’s messing around with her eyelashes using some sort of utensil that John gently pulls away from her and sets down on the counter. She doesn’t look at him, and he can barely stand to look at her. 

“You really knocked him out, you know,” he says softly, “Really. He’s as close as he can get to being in love with you.”

“But it’s not enough, is it?” she touches his arm, “To be close, but not quite there.”

He feels bruised by the words, stunned into a muted state of embarrassment. He knows he wants too much of things - of everything. And whatever void he can’t fill by what he excavates from people and fame and money and material possessions is burning in his chest like a hollow heart. A burning flare of rose tints his face. The fog of the chemistry between them evaporates and all there is now is brutal honesty. 

“You could have anyone,” he tells her, as if she wouldn’t already know, “You’ve even slept with a Beatle.”

They both chuckle at that, soothing the suffocating tension hanging in the air.

“That I did,” she squeezes his hand and takes a deep breath and rolls back her shoulders, “We all want impossible things, darling, that’s how it is in this world. I’m not going to cry over it.”

“Do you know what my impossible thing is?” he asks. It’s a challenge, a cry for help.  _ If you see me, maybe you can help me _ . 

She scans his face with all the tenderness of a mother looking at her child, “No, no I don’t. But I do know you won’t find it in bed with me.”

He nods, scratching at his sideburns, catching a glance at his miserably anxious reflection in the mirror. It’s time to go now, he realises. He’ll stop off at the Asher home, see if Paul is working on anything. He needs a bit of music now.

“I suppose I owe you an answer,” she laughs sardonically, “But you should know by now, darling, it doesn’t matter what’s between their legs. It’s all about why you went to bed with them in the first place, and why you want them in there next time too.”

"But Eppy-"

"I'm not talking about _that_ ," she shakes her head, "Even if I was, it's still true. He doesn't want a perfect Jewish wife and I don't want a husband that daydreams about Farley Granger while I'm in bed with him. Nor do I want to be second place to the most charming foursome of boys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

He smiles bashfully, shaking his head, "I can't fault that logic."

"So perhaps it's time we go out and carry on, even without those impossible things. We might as well _live_ in the meantime."

If only he knew how.

_And while they were dancin'  
My friend stole my lover from me..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I've written something! And posted it? Wonders never cease!  
> Thank you for reading.  
> I'm thisbirdhadflownx on tumblr xxx


End file.
